Controlled interventions in bone tissue engineering

The future development of cell-based regenerative medicine depends on further translation of basic discoveries regarding the behavior of stem cells into practical applications. The goal is to understand how mechanical loads are transmitted to and sensed by cells cultured in a 3D environment, and how cells react to loading or to changes of parameters. To achieve this, we need to be able to follow the magnitude of a measurable outcome that an externally applied intervention produces. As such interventions usually are connected to other (measurable) parameters of the culture, being able to show that we can intentionally control tissue development means that we have understood at least part of the connections between these parameters. Only through this knowledge gained in simplified in vitro cultures it will be possible to predict in vivo outcomes. The goal of the proposed project is to establish a platform system that enables controlled manipulation of the formation rate of the mineralized ECM volume produced by hMSC in mechanically loaded bioreactors.